Postmodern Marx

[Michael Hoover]

> On Fri, 4 Jun 1999 01:51:13 -0400 curtiss_leung at ibi.com writes:
> >     "Dark satanic mills" was Blake...I don't have a clue as to 
> >Blake's 
> >     politics.
> >
> Politically, Blake was a radical.  He was part of a circle of friends
> that included Thomas Paine.  During the 1790s they were noted
> for their sympathy to the French Revolution and were subject
> to persecution from Pitt's government because of it (Paine had
> to eventually flee from Britain to avoid imprisonment).
> 
> 			Jim Farmelant

Blake was also influenced by William Godwin's _Political Justice_ and
was one of English Romantics who could accept neither Christianity
nor British utilitarianism...finding industrialism and its values of
acquisitiveness and competition repugnant, he looked to fantasy and
transcendence for clues to protect self from alienation & exploitation.
..a pastoral utopian, he lived a pretty solitary life with the exception 
of the period that Jim F refers to above when his circle of friends -
including Godwin, Paine, Richard Price, Joseph Priestly, Mary 
Wollstonecraft - had a relationship with the London Corresponding
Society that promulgated radical ideas influenced by the Jacobins...

Michael Hoover (who is, admittedly, a bit out his range on this matter
and welcomes comments/corrections/criticism)